The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

The push for equality and ever more rights—two of [democracy’s] basic principles—requires a ruling class to govern competing claims; thus the rise of the undemocratic judiciary as the arbiter of many aspects of public life, and of bureaucracies that issue rules far removed from the democratic process. Should this trend continue, Minogue foresees widespread servility replacing the tradition of free government.

This new servility will be based not on oppression, but on the conviction that experts have eliminated any need for citizens to develop habits of self-control, self-government, or what used to be called the virtues.

How has democracy led to “servility,” which is really a kind of oppression? Here is my diagnosis.

It is well understood that voters, by and large, vote irrationally, that is, emotionally, on the basis of “buzz” instead of facts, and inconsistently. (See this, this, and this, for example.) Voters are prone to vote against their own long-run interests because they do not understand the consequences of the sound-bite policies advocated by politicians. American democracy, by indiscriminately granting the franchise — as opposed to limiting it to, say, married property owners over the age of 30 who have children — empowers the run-of-the-mill politician who seeks office (for the sake of prestige, power, and perks) by pandering to the standard, irrational voter.

Rationality is the application of sound reasoning and pertinent facts to the pursuit of a realistic objective (one that does not contradict the laws of nature or human nature). I daresay that most voters are guilty of voting irrationally because they believe in such claptrap as peace through diplomacy, “social justice” through high marginal tax rates, or better health care through government regulation.

To be perfectly clear, the irrationality lies not in favoring peace, “social justice” (whatever that is), health care, and the like. The irrationality lies in uninformed beliefs in such contradictions as peace through unpreparedness for war, “social justice” through soak-the-rich schemes, better health care through greater government control of medicine, etc., etc., etc. Voters whose objectives incorporate such beliefs simply haven’t taken the relatively little time it requires to process what they may already know or have experienced about history, human nature, and social and economic realities.

Why is voters’ irrationality important? Does voting really matter? Well, it’s easy to say that an individual’s vote makes very little difference. But individual votes add up. Every vote cast for a winning political candidate enhances his supposed mandate, which usually is (in his mind) some scheme (or a lot of them) to regulated our lives more than they are already regulated.

That is to say, voters (not to mention those who profess to understand voters) overlook the slippery slopeeffects of voting for those who promise to “deliver” certain benefits. It is true that the benefits, if delivered, would temporarily increase the well-being of certain voters. But if one group of voters reaps benefits, then another group of voters wants to reap benefits as well. Why? Because votes are not won, nor offices held, by placating a particular class of voter; many other classes of them must also be placated.

The “benefits” sought by voters (and delivered by politicians) areregulatory as well as monetary. Many voters (especially wealthy, paternalistic ones) are more interested in controlling others than they are in reaping government handouts (though they don’t object to that either). And if one group of voters reaps certain regulatory benefits, it follows (as night from day) that other groups also will seek (and reap) regulatory benefits. (Must one be a trained economist to understand this? Obviously not, because most trained economists don’t seem to understand it.)

And then there is the “peace–at-any-price–one-world” crowd, which is hard to distinguish from the crowd that demands (and delivers) monetary and regulatory “benefits.”

So, here we are:

Many particular benefits are bestowed and many regulations are imposed, to the detriment of investors, entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, and people who simply are willing to work hard to advance themselves. And it is they who are responsible for the economic growth that bestows (or would bestow) more jobs and higher incomes on everyone, from the poorest to the richest.

Americans have, since 1932, voted heavily against their own economic and security interests, and the economic and security interests of their progeny. But what else can you expect when — for those same 78 years — voters have been manipulated into voting against their own interests by politicians, media, “educators,” and “intelligentsia”? What else can you expect when the courts have all too often ratified the malfeasance of those same politicians?

Comments & Correspondence

Now that this blog is in hiatus, I have closed comments on all posts. If you wish to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.